Camera Enforcement Vehicle: Bristol declares war on school parents

"Camera Enforcement Vehicle". An odd term. It has a hint of Mad Max's "Interceptor", back in the days when Mel Gibson did half-decent films. In Mad Max, the interceptor existed to catch criminals threatening the streets and the safety of citizens.

We are sure that the council thinks their Enforcement Vehicle is there for the same goal, but we know what it has done: it has declared war on hardworking school parents who have nowhere to park their 4x4 for child dropoff except in the School Keep Clear lanes.

Today: when you see the traffic officers outside the school you know to drive pass, take the five minute hit on child dropoff to avoid the ticket. Once they've been and gone, that's it for the term. Safe. But not now.

Look at this car  R009OVT. It's got a camera on top, a GPS unit lurking inside. Now all it has to do is drive past a school and it can take a photograph of all the parents parked in the parent-parking-zone, then send them tickets later. Because it can do drive-by ticketing, it can cover multiple schools in a day -increasing the risk of getting caught. And you don't get any warning, you won't know to detour on the dropoff that day. After the dropoff: uncertainty. Did they pick on you today?

Worse yet the ANPR school parking car is not just targeting school zigzags, but also anyone stopping in a bus stop. Is it really so bad for people to have to get off the bus in the middle of the road? If people are worried about safety then the bus driver could simply drive on to the next stop (as they are apparently officially expected to do)!

They are enforcing loading restrictions, so stopping legitimate traders like Tesco from stopping their vans outside shops during rush hour. What sort of priority does Bristol put on the economy?

Even worse: the Evening Post isn't on our side here. They have joined the War against Motorists, in the same week the evil anti-car EU bumped up fuel prices by declaring an oil embargo against Iran. This is just victimisation

There's only one way to defeat this: stand firm.

Make sure nobody from your kids school calls Parking Services on 0117 922 2198 giving them the school location and exact time morning and evening when they would catch the most parents on a drive by.

Similarly, make sure they don't email parking.services at bristol.gov.uk giving them the same details, or telling them of your favourite secret bus-stop short-stay parking areas.

If nobody tells them of the places and times they should be enforcing parking at schools or in bus stops -we will continue to be able to exercise our right to do so!

White Hart Steps Bus Stop

We don't like Buses here at Bristol Traffic. They drive slowly. They stop us driving in bus lanes. They are full of students and people who have some kind of misguided notion that taking public transport saves the environment, though since none of them have proper jobs First's pricing policy ensures that very few of them can afford to get on the buses nowadays.

We do, however, like bus stops, which are a great place to park. There used to be one here, at the conjunction of White Hart Steps, World's End Lane and Bellevue Crescent in Cliftonwood, but as you can see from the photo below, this is no more.


However, the eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that something is pinned to the lamp-post, which upon closer inspection turns out to be an application to reinstate the bus-stop. We urge you to write to the council and support this.

Problem Bus Stops

Our commentary yesterday hinted at bus problems in Crow Lane, as a result of criminal activity in the area.

Over here leafy Redland Road this is less of a problem, and the brave owner of EF59VBA is even comfortable leaving the Volvo half on the pavement. 

The problem here is not muggers, but bus stops. This bus stop in particular, and the one nearly opposite it, where poor people, the young, the old, students and those awful busy bodies from Transition Bristol stand and wait to catch their sustainable transport down to Temple Meads.

This means that those of us with a proper job, and car to match, have to suffer huge tracts of perfectly good parking provision removed from use, just to accommodate a bus stop. Just how selfish can these people be?

Shared Space at work

Lovely photo of how the Shared Space idea, where the lines between pavement and road are blurred to produce a safer environment, helps on Dovercourt road between Horfield and Lockleaze -this road is also going to be part of the North Fringe cycle route, if funding for the bridge at the bottom doesn't get taken away and used for something useful like parking by a school.

Look how this stretch of pavement not only provides somewhere safe for children to play, but parking for a van, the minivan K648EJH -and a bus stop!

If you look at the full size image, you can see the woman in the photo is happy, she really must appreciate this shared-space infrastructure, giving her somewhere pleasant to stand while waiting for a FirstBus bus to turn up.

Bus Passengers cost shops money

We are shocked to see that bus passengers are damaging the economy in Bedminster.

This is the sign on the bus shelter

Passenger Notice

Please queue to the left

of the shelter when

waiting for buses

Please do not obstruct

the frontages of local

businesses when

waiting for buses

This selfish behaviour of bus passengers is destroying the local economy

Not only do they not shop in the Sextons' car audio showroom or motaman car parts, they block sight of Star News and Booze from passing cars.

Corner work in Henleaze

Carrying on our search for the car doing the most ambitious rule breakings in one go, is this one sent in by "PMB", showing how someone solved the problem of getting to the newsagent:

Seen in Northumbria Drive Henleaze last Friday
This driver of WM07 GXJ seems to be attempting some kind of world record for multiple offences -

1. parking across and obstructing the pavement
2. obstructing a bus stop
3. parking on zig zags for a zebra crossing
4. trying his best to block someone's driveway

and probably all to buy a newspaper - pure genius

This parking makes sense. It's raining, and with the car right up against the bus stop, you could nip out the passenger side and get under the bus stop without getting wet, then into the newsagent. This would make the location ideal for a "multi modal transport interchange with shopping facilities". Furthermore, everyone buying a copy of the Evening Post helps support the campaign against bicycles.

The Former Bristol Bus Network

Gloucester Road on a Saturday morning. A queue of people outside the bread store. If you don't know why they are waiting, come down some time and get some of their chocolate croissants. the mini doughnuts go down well with kids, too. But plan your visit carefully if you want to come by bus.

Because that bus stop, the one with bus stop painted on the road in front of it isn't a bus stop.

There is a big sign "This bus stop is no longer in use".

Perhaps it is still there awaiting a pick up in traffic? Perhaps the advertising revenue justifies it existence. We think a sheffield rack under it would provide some dry bike parking and not inconvenience anyone at all.

As more of the FirstBus routes get shut down and rolled back, using their former bus shelters as bicycle parking would be a valuable contribution to a cycling city.

Well, it is bus-sized

The VW Tuareg WR57FJJ is taking full advantage of the parking space offered on St Michael's Hill.

It does say "Bus Stop", and any vehicle this size is half-way to being a bus, so it should have the right to park here.


It is sticking out a bit -perhaps the risk of banging the inconveniently positioned bus stop sign prevent it from using the pavement.

There's no point criticising this car; there's nowhere else in the area to park a car even for a minute on a weekday, especially not something big like a 4X4. It's not like there is a side street just round the corner with an empty stretch of double yellow line and pavement, where you would at least be letting buses get by when you parked there.

Bus Parking

On Thursday Feb 5, it was snowy enough for FirstBus to not come out. Some people knew this, and took advantage of the fact that bus stops were now parking spaces.

But why is that woman standing forlornly at the bus stop?

Ahh, it's the the afternoon, and the buses have started running. Too bad all the bus stops are taken.

Uses for a Bus Stop

It might seem that parking a mobile hamburger takeaway in a bus stop is making life inconvenient for bus passengers

But this is Lockleaze, after 6pm. There aren't going to be that many more buses, and all the shops in the square have closed down. This little shop is all there is for evening activities. As such, it provides a valuable community resource for people without cars, without the money to waste on a taxi or the time and money to hang around hoping a bus may come eventually. Which would you prefer - somewhere where you can stand and wait for a FirstBus bus to turn up or enough services near where you live that you don't need FirstBus?

Parking, Bedminster Style

Ed. P. posts this snap of someone doing a bit of pavement parking at the bus stop on York Road, Bedminster, by a car with the registration number WX06FVE.

Ed: the police are allowed to park anywhere they want, and any attempt to imply otherwise means you run the risk of arrest. If they'd been reversing, they would have pulled you in for this photo!

Waiting for a bus at Bristol Airport

A line of people waiting for a bus at Bristol Airport. Clearly the airport's funding of alternate transport arrangements are paying off and these people are taking a fast and easy journey back to Bristol, instead of creating more congestion on the A38 and more pressure for a South Bristol bypass.

And here come the bus - I wonder where it is going?

oops. Its going to the silver parking. These people are creating more congestion on the A38 and more pressure for a South Bristol bypass after all.

And why not? As the advert on the bus says, its 29 quid for a week's parking. The bus charges 6 or 7 pounds one way, 8 return. There is a family return for 20 quid, but that still leaves you with the problem of getting from the bus station to your house, and unless you live in walking-with-luggage distance of one of the halts, that's going to involve another bus or a taxi. Probably a taxi, as that will usually cost less than a bus for a family of four.

Of course people are going to use the airport car parks. And as the airport's business model is based on charging the airlines next to nothing and making money from the added value extras, the money they make from parking, from the bus or from the premium they charge the one permitted taxi company must be a significant profit source to the airline. They like you to drive, they want you to park. It's profitable.

Disabled Parking Economics

If you ever go down Horfield Road, by Saint Michael's Hill, during weekday or weekend hospital hours, you will see a line of cars on the double yellow lines, often including the bus stop.

None of these cars get ticketed, because they have a disabled sticker on them. Which, given they are clearly visiting the hospital, could well be justified. You don't go to the BRI if you can avoid it. But why park on the yellow lines? Is it because they can, and there is no room in the car park? Not quite.

There is room in the car park, at least on this weekend shot. So that's not the reason. Here's the reason, from the United Bristol Healthcare's parking site Terms and Conditions.

2 pounds 20 an hour, 60 quid fine. Disabled parking is only allowed in the few disabled slots. Which at the time of inspection, were all taken up. So disabled people driving to the hospital on a Saturday for some ongoing treatment are given a choice of 2+ pounds/hour for the car park or free parking where the bus stop is. What rational person would not block the bus stop?
Given the patients are making a rational decision: it's cheaper to park on the double yellow lines, why doesn't the hospital recognise the ongoing need for disabled parking and say "anyone with a disabled sticker can park free for the first two hours?". Again, rational thinking.

Every disabled driver parked in their car park would bring in zero pounds/hour revenue. Every space used for disabled parking is essentially lost money. Assuming the opening hours of the hospital are 0800 to 2000: 12 hours/day weekdays, and during those hours the car park was full of cars. That's 185 pounds/week, or 9600 pounds/year for every disabled parking space, or every disabled car parking in a non-designated parking space. If an average of eight disabled cars were to park in the BRI car park (that's the normal number of disabled cars on the yellow lines), that would be an opportunity cost to the BRI of just under seventy-seven thousand pounds per year.
And that's why you get disabled cars blocking the bus stop outside the BRI. Not because the disabled drivers are being lazy and selfish, but because someone in the UBHT with a spreadsheet decided that letting the disabled patients park for free would cost them too much money, and having them park illegally outside was not their problem.